Catholic woman makes covenant with God through Sisters of St. Joseph

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
The joy and openness of Sisters of St. Joseph here attracted a woman from Haiti who was seeking to serve the Church and be nourished spiritually herself.
Marie Pascale Duplan, 55, did not, as one child described it, become a “part-time nun.” But March 3 she became a lay associate of the sisters at a special Mass in St. Joseph’s Church of Holy Family Parish in Worcester.
For the Covenant of Association at that Mass, Ms. Duplan read the covenant she wrote. Sister Patricia Smith, a member of the sisters’ leadership team, gave the Congregational Response. Then she and Ms. Duplan and Susan Lavoie, director of associates, signed the covenant. Father Steven LaBaire, Holy Family’s pastor, blessed the associate pin and Sister Patricia presented it to Ms. Duplan.
“My covenant is my conversation with the Lord,” Ms. Duplan told The Catholic Free Press. “This is my way of telling him that I want to commit to living a simple … humble … loving life.”
This new affiliation with the sisters helps extend the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph, “that all may be one – neighbor uniting with neighbor, neighbor uniting with God, neighbor uniting with creation,” Sister Patricia said.
“Associates are men and women who, according to their particular way of life, are committed to the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph,” says the website ssjspringfield.org. “They enter into a covenant to live simply and choose ministry with or without focus on the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph. … They devote themselves to seeking God and finding God in the neighborhoods in which they live and move, as well as in their relationships with other members of the community.”
“Since I was … 16, 17 I had this calling in my heart – I wanted to be part of a lay community,” Ms. Duplan said. “In Haiti I knew of a community like that.” When she was 18 she told the priest in charge that she wanted to join, and he told her to wait until she was 25, she said.
“Between 18 and 25 I got married,” she said. “I still had in my heart I was to serve the Lord. … I wanted to be like a promoter for the Church.”
She was an accountant by profession, but one way Ms. Duplan was able to serve the Church was to join with a guitarist and sing for Sunday Masses, weddings and funerals. She also worked with young people, encouraging them to get involved in the Church. But she wanted to serve the Church more fully.
“I felt thirsty inside, for my own personal life, especially when my divorce occurred,” she said. So she stepped back from her ministries.
When she was invited to come to the Worcester Diocese in January 2016, she jumped at the chance. Before leaving Haiti, she asked the blessing of a bishop, who told her, “Rely on St. Joseph,” she recalled.
“Then I was brought to St. Joseph’s Church to sing for the Haitian community,” she said. She sings at the Sunday French Mass and does evangelization with the Haitian community here, and works in the Chancery with the diocesan Haitian Apostolate.
Ms. Duplan said that for Thanksgiving in 2016, Sister Paula Kelleher, the Sister of St. Joseph who later became her mentor, invited her and others to dinner with the sisters. She still has a paper distributed there, which displays a smiley face and the words, “All are welcome” and “Count your blessings.”
There she met Joan Claflin, one of the associates, and asked about becoming one.
“This is what I’ve been looking for for so long,” she thought.
Reflecting on what attracted her, she said: “The first thing is their joy. It’a a joyful community. They are welcoming. The other thing is their openness. … They are so open, so updated. … It’s the neighbor first. It’s the heart first. … It’s rooted in Jesus’ teachings. … They give priority to the person’s soul. … Sister Natalie Cain always says, ‘Mind, spirit, body and soul.’…You have the freedom to have your … questions … to see things differently.”
The sisters broadened their own horizons as they were getting older by welcoming lay people, such as associates, to be part of their community, she said.
“If you find Christ, the rest will come,” Ms. Duplan said. “They helped me give meaning to the thirst I had. They helped me understand God is not mad because I’m not satisfied in my quest. God wants me to keep digging and looking for him.”
She said she spent 14 months in preparation for becoming an associate.
Now she says: “I found what I wanted.” Wherever she lives in the future, she will be following the sisters’ spirituality, she said. She can share with people in Haiti what she has learned from them.
“I have something to give now,” she says. “The way they welcome you – the smile, the respect. They respect one another. Everybody is special – we are all sons and daughters of God.”